


Broken Ground

by orphan_account



Series: Roads [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-27
Updated: 2010-05-26
Packaged: 2017-10-09 05:06:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/83346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Dean are trying to track down Sam, and what they find along the way are some disturbing clues about the demon's plans.</p><p>Warnings: This part: cussing and some graphic description of burn wounds. Later chapters: Violence, sex, and minor character death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

_November 2005_

The first thing he feels when he wakes is burning.  Dry heat sears his face, his neck, down his chest and out to his arms.  The skin of his hands crackles and pops without a sound. Sam struggles through the haze and suffocating weight of smoke in his lungs to opens his eyes; see, hear.  Everything around him is bland and sterile.  _Hospital_, he thinks before he even registers the muted beep of the heart monitor and the hum of the machines hooked up to some unseen patient in the next bed over. 

He starts to push himself up, curls his fingers into loose fists without thinking and regrets it instantly.  Damaged skin stretches and pulls, feels like it's peeling away from muscle and bone.  Sam sinks back down with a grunt, muscles strung tight as he forcibly relaxes his hands and ignores the way his arms are shaking at his sides.

Sam's hands are bandaged, wrapped up in gauze from the elbows on down to the tips of his fingers.  He remembers reaching up for her, climbing up on the bed and twisting his hands in the thin fabric of her t-shirt to pull her down.  Not looking at her empty eyes or the gash in her stomach, because if he could just pull a little harder...

Someone had pulled him away, or caught him as he'd collapsed from the heat and the lack of oxygen.  It's all muddled.

"Didn't expect you awake so soon,"  a heavyset woman with frazzled hair steps around the curtain and looks him up and down.  She's wearing the uniform of nurses everywhere; ill-fitted scrubs and broken-in sneakers.  "Don't move, and don't talk.  Doctor's coming by soon to adjust your medications.  You got anyone we should call?"

Sam squints at her.

"Right, no talking.  You keep taking directions this well and we'll get along just fine."

She fusses with his blankets for a bit, tucking and tugging until they meet her standards and gives his bandages the once over; looking for what, he's not sure.  There's nothing there.  He couldn't hold on.  The doctor walks in and nothing he says registers, but he's got this low soothing voice and almost as soon as he starts talking Sam feels cool relief flowing through his veins, causing the room to blur and the burning to fade away.

Three days later he checks out AMA after assuring the doctor (whose name he still can't remember) that of course there's someone to help him get around and _manage.  _They always say it just like that, "manage," like it's a euphemism for some dark, dirty thing no one wants to talk about.  He'll open the pain med bottles with his teeth and his toes if he has to, anything to get away from pitying smiles of the hospital staff and the stilted conversations with one-time friends who feel obligated to visit.

Becca drives him to the nearest motel; quietly, because she knows better than to try talking him out of it when he's in this kind of mood.  It doesn't stop her from glancing over at him every few seconds, tight lipped and brows drawn together in concern.  She wants him to stay at Zack's for a while, or over at Ethan and Dave's place; anywhere but alone in a cheap motel.  There's no easy way to explain to any of them that a cheap motel room is more comfortable and familiar than anyone's crowded apartment.

"I need some time alone," he says, because that one always seems to work on people.

"That's okay, Sam, we all understand."  She shrugs a shoulder, an awkward play at being casual.  "I wasn't going to say anything."

_But you were thinking it loud and clear, _Sam thinks.

_December 2006_

Dean is twisted up in his seat, shoulders pushed back and hips angled out.   John doesn't think there's any way that could be comfortable, but Dean is fast asleep with one hand clutching the bowie knife in it's sheath, tucked away in his jacket.  John plunks the bag of food in Dean's lap and tries not to smile like an idiot when Dean shoots up, surprised and yelling nonsense. 

He hasn't been sleeping much lately; neither of them have, and it's rare to see Dean wake up surprised instead of scared.

Dean rubs his eyes with one hand and paws at the bag with the other, sifting through the contents even though he can't see.  They can probably both identify diner takeout by smell and the weight of the styrofoam containers alone, and that's about as depressing as anything else.

"Onion rings, grande burrito, Doritos..." Dean sleepily lists off the items as he sorts through the bag.  He stares down at it for a few seconds after he's poked and prodded everything at least twice.  "Dude, are you trying to buy back my love?"

"What?"

"Double helpings of all my favorites, no bitching about eating my veggies, and you offered to let me drive the Impala yesterday.  What the hell?"

"You need to learn how to drive."

"I know how to drive."

"Yeah, says who?"  John turns the ignition and they both pause to listen to her rumble to life.  She's pitch-perfect, just like always; at least that's one thing the demon didn't fuck all to hell.  He needs to take Dean to Bobby's or something, teach him how to drive for real on one of the clunkers.  "You know how to stay in between the lines, and that's a long way from knowing how to drive."

"Whatever.  You're changing the topic.  Stuff like this?" He holds up the bag of junk food.  "- is getting creepy.  You were possessed, it wasn't you, I'm over it.  Can we move on now, please?"

Right.  Like anything with Dean is ever that easy.  "I'll make sure to get you a nice big salad at the next rest stop.  How's that sound?"

"Peachy."

  
It takes them half a day to get up to Grand Rapids, Michigan.  Dean bitches most of the way, squirming his seat and flipping through the stations on the radio like a hyperactive child.  John slaps his hand away from the tuner after the fifth station change in as many minutes and immediately regrets it when Dean freezes up.

"Pick a station and stick with it for chrissake."  It's not much of an apology - it's actually not an apology at all, but it's as close as John can get right now. 

_Sorry I spent the past month or so letting a demon fuck with you?  Sorry I was too busy being useless and I didn't have your back when you really needed it._   And Christ but that brings up a completely different bag full of issues.  John rubs his hand down the outer seam of his jeans, still trying to erase the sense memory of his fingers tracing along Dean's bare skin.  And not because it's a bad feeling, not at all, and that's kind of the problem.

Dean leans back in his seat and leaves the radio alone, they're both stuck listening to country music piped in over crappy reception that fades in and out.

"You think I can do anything else?" Dean asks out of the blue.

"Like what?"  He knows what Dean is talking about but any excuse not to answer right away is a good one.

"I dunno.  You think I can fly?  I think that would be a cool superpower.  Or telekinesis."

"You want a little spandex outfit to go with your new superhero identity?"

"Only if you want me too."  John doesn't need to look over to know Dean is sending him a cheesy wink.  "No latex nipples though."

"But you're just fine with wearing your underwear outside your tights?"

  
"Well yeah.  If you're a superhero then it's totally okay.  But the chest armor with nipples just looks stupid."

At some point in the not so distant past, John had considered himself a master of the repress and deny method of not dealing with shit.  That'd been before he'd met Dean. 

They can spend the rest of the trip talking about superheroes and stupid costumes without actually saying anything at all.  He thinks maybe that's okay for now, until he can come up with the right combination of words that excuses the way he actually wants everything the demon had tried to take.

  
"So what's the deal with this one?"

Dean has been remarkably patient, really.  They'd hit the road minutes after everything went down at the cabin, driving halfway across the state to check in with one of John's contacts and then seven more hours on the road up to Michigan without an explanation.

"Kid killed his father and his uncle and then ran for it.  According to the kid's stepmother, a priest fitting Sam's description helped him get away.  They caught him a couple days later."

"And he went with the crazycakes defense?"

"He went with the 'years of horrible abuse' defense and his lawyer got him checked in here for counseling instead of thrown in prison."

"You really think Sam helped him escape?" 

Dean cranes his neck to look up at the building across the street.  It looks bland and institutional, cold and hard with bars on the windows.  John knows a few guys who've ended up in places like this; got back from the war or a bad hunt and their worlds just fell apart on them.  It doesn't look like a place people go to get better, it looks like a place people go to live out their lives in a safe cage until they die.

"I think the stepmom has some holes in her story big enough to drive a truck though, which is why we're talking to the kid and not her."  He pulls a messy stack of papers from under his seat and passes them over to Dean.  Copies of police reports and transcripts from the trial that Rob had pulled together at the last minute.  "Should only take an hour or so, why don't you see what you can make of that."

"You're going in alone?"

John doesn't answer, just grabs a badge out of the glove box and clips it to the front of his jacket.  Dean's still too young to pass for a Federal Marshal anyway.

  
Max is twitchy and thin; John doesn't usually give in to bouts of pity but he takes a moment to be thankful the kid didn't end up in general lockdown - he'd be eaten alive.  He's Sam's age but doesn't look it; big eyes and hunched shoulders making him look younger and smaller.

"What do you want?"  He looks up at John suspiciously, but strangely enough he doesn't look scared.

"I just need to ask you a few questions, son."

"You're not my father."  The good 'ol boy routine usually works better than this, but considering the kid's real father sounds like a monster John supposes the distinction is a good thing.

"My apologies, Mr. Miller.  My name is John, I'm with the Federal Marshals.  Can I call you Max?"

Max stares at him.  "You're here about that guy, Sam."

"Do you know where he is?  Where he might have gone after you saw him?"

"No.  And if I did, I wouldn't help you.  He tried to stop me - he's not bad."  Max's gaze drops down to the table for a second, head cocked like he's listening to something John can't hear.  He waits.  "You can't stop it, we're not supposed to.  He's a soldier."  Max looks up.  "He has a mission and you can't stop it."

"Stop what?"  John's knuckles go white on his pen and notepad.  "Max, stop _what_?"

"Tide's changing."  Max doesn't sound like himself anymore, voice deep and sure instead of cracked and wavering.  "We're soldiers.  Everything's about to change."  His eyes are wide and unfocused, staring off into the corner of the room and lips twitching slightly with half formed words. 

He gets nothing else out of Max.  Fifteen minutes of catching the random words falling from his mouth and John can't make them make sense, when the orderly comes in to lead him away.  Max stops in the doorway just as John is packing up his briefcase, he turns back and looks right at John.

"He could do it too, you know."

The only thing that stops John from screaming back _what_? is the choking pressure of what feels like a rock lodged in his throat.

  
Dean is laying across the front seat with the printouts stacked on his stomach and holding a couple of pages up over his face.  John knocks on the window and watches him start and then peer up from under the paper.  He reaches over his head and unlocks the door upside-down, then rolls up to sit.

"You know it's considered child abuse to leave a kid alone in a locked car?"

"You're twenty-four."

"I could've died of hypothermia." 

"Dean, we have a case to work on right now.  Focus."  John yanks the door shut and cranks the engine on.  This bullshit is fine when they're killing time on the road, but they've got bigger things to deal with right now.

"Oh what, you mean this stack of crap I've been going over for the past hour?  And here I thought I was just reading these for the fun of it."

"Dean."

Dean presses his lips together and glares at the dashboard.  "Fine.  These deaths sound shady to me.  How does a kid that weighs like a hundred and forty pounds dripping wet manage to lock a full grown man in his car and keep him there long enough to die of carbon monoxide poisoning without getting poisoned himself?  Or slam a window shut hard enough to decapitate a guy?  It doesn't add up."

"Unless the kid's got powers."

"And?  You see anything?"

"Nope.  Kid's a nutcase.  He saw Sam back in May but I doubt we're gonna get anything else out of him."  _He could do it too, you know_.  John doesn't mention that part, some things Dean doesn't need to know.

"Are we talking yellow-eyed demon kind of nuts or I killed my daddy for kicks kind of nuts?"

"Probably both."

"Awesome."  Dean shuffles the pages back into a mostly neat stack and shoves them under his seat.  "So what's next on the list?"

"Gotta go at it like any other case.  We'll start in Palo Alto and talk to his friends and neighbors.  Figure out if maybe he's kept in touch with anyone there that'll give us a clue."  Neither of them says Sam's name.

  
They're almost an hour out of Michigan when John gets the call from Missouri.

"John Winchester I could smack you.  Your boy's been here and he looks like death warmed over.  You drive straight down here right now and I'll have breakfast waitin' for you and Dean."

"Hello to you too, Missouri."  He doesn't bother asking how she knows about Dean.  "You saw Sam?  When?"

"Just a little while ago.  You get down here now and I'll tell you all you want to know."

No use arguing, John knows from experience Missouri can kick his ass six ways from Sunday without so much as waving her wooden spoon.  "We'll be there in about nine hours," he says.

"I know.  And for god's sake let Dean lay down in the back seat, can't you tell that boy's back is bothering him?"

John glances over at Dean, who's twisted up in the seat again and drumming his fingers on the top of his thighs.  His face is blank but it's easy enough to tell the attitude is affected.  John swears under his breath, remembers the phone a moment too late and tries to hold it away from his face.

Which does exactly nothing.  "Keep talking like that and I'm gonna feed you a bar of soap when you get here instead of pancakes."

"My apologies, Ma'am. We'll be there soon as we can."

He hangs up to her grumbling about getting called ma'am.  He looks over at Dean again, notices the twist of his shoulders and the way his fingers hitch in their rhythm every once in a while.  Goddammit, the bruising must've been worse than he thought and who knows what kind of damage the demon had done on top of that.

"How's your back?"  John asks, not expecting a straight answer.

"Hurts like a bitch.  Good thing two straight days in the car is exactly what the doctor ordered, eh?"

Shit.  He pulls over to the side of the road and pops the glove compartment, chucks the bottle of acetaminophen into Dean's lap.  "And you thought hiding this from me was a good idea because-?"

Dean shrugs one shoulder.  "We gotta find Sammy, right?"

"Just take those and get in the damn backseat so you can lay down.  And next time you think about hiding an injury from me?  Don't."

Dean doesn't argue, and John winces as he watches Dean open the door and climb slowly into the back.  He can already tell he's going to catch hell from Missouri when Dean comes limping in; probably chide him that the kid's too skinny; nevermind that Dean is built solid through. 

He doesn't talk to Missouri all that often, but some days there's just no pleasing her and John really wishes he could quash whatever impulse it was that made him feel bad about it.  None of that really matters though, minutes ago he'd thought they had zilch on Sam and now he knows Missouri saw him just days ago and fuck if that isn't some awesome timing.

  
"John Winchester, you look like something dragged in outta the dumpster.  Get in here and stop looking at me like a damn fool puppy."  John can hear Dean behind him, trying not to snicker and failing miserably.  He steps out of the way and it isn't long before she starts in on Dean too.  "And you'll wipe your feet before you come in my house, boy."  Missouri points a stern finger down at the mat and glares at Dean until he obeys.

"Come in, sit down,"  all easy and welcoming now that she's clearly established who's in charge.  "You boys take a load off while I get some coffee for you both."

  
Everything in the room is soft and homey, small touches of nostalgia littered throughout and Dean looks about ready to bolt.  He pats down the back of his jeans before he sits and John realizes he has no clue when was the last time they made a pit stop for laundry.  One more thing that can wait, but probably not for much longer he thinks as he notices the dried mud cracking on the hem of his jeans.

Missouri hustles back in, delicate teacups full of hot coffee balanced in her hands.  John catches the look of disbelief on Dean's face as he examines the tiny cup, raises his eyebrows at John as if to say _what's the point?_

_   
_

John clears his throat, anxious to cut through the small talk if there's any chance Missouri will let him.  "You said you heard from Sam?"

 

"Didn't hear from him, no.  I saw him.  About four days back, I went by the cemetery to visit - well.  A friend of a friend had asked me to check in on grave site of a young girl that just passed away in a car accident, poor thing.  Not twenty yards away I looked over and I saw flowers on your Mary's grave."

 

It doesn't mean anything to him, not the site or the carved stone.

The casket is empty, put up by a distant uncle John had only met the one time.  But to hear it like that always brought a shiver to his skin, _Mary's grave, _like you might say _Joe's car_ or _Martha's house_.  Like it somehow belonged to her; like she'd had any choice in the matter.  He wasn't even sure how Sam had figured out where it was, John had never brought him here.  Trust Sam to figure it out though; stop by to leave flowers on her grave (her _grave_) like a punch to the gut.

  
John shifts in his seat, folds his hands in front of him.  "You said you saw him."

"Not in person, no.  But when I stood by that grave, hoo-boy, I could see him alright.  Your boy is teetering on the edge of something bad, John.  I can't pin it down, but it's powerful."

"Was anyone with him?"

She doesn't have to ask to know he means demons.  "He was alone, far as I could tell.  But there's a dark energy following him, it's small for now but it's growing." 

  
They end up crashing in a motel in Lawrence, three days with little to no sleep and no new leads to chase finally catching up with John, as loathe as he is to admit it. 

Dean hits the bathroom for a shower without a word, probably hoping to soak out some of the soreness.  John's eyes are gritty and dry, a headache building from the base of his skull and threatening to take hold.  Tired as he is, he can't quite sleep, not yet.  John paces the room, stretching his legs  and letting his thoughts flip through the scant leads they had yet to run down.

Missouri couldn't find a trace to hint at where Sam had headed next, but that didn't mean there weren't clues around town.  He'd questioned the motel clerk on the way in, flashed a photo of Sam that was at least seven years out of date.  There are a bunch of other motels in town, but only a few John knows Sam is likely to actually stay in.  But that's assuming he's staying in motels at all, god knows they've both spent their share of nights twisted up sleeping in the car.

Dean walks out of the bathroom thirty minutes later in a cloud of steam.

"You leave any hot water?"

"Nope," he says without a hint of apology and falls face first into bed.

"How bad is it?"

"Water pressure sucks, but there wasn't anything growing in the sink so I count it a win."  Dean's face is smushed into the pillow, words slurred and lazy.

"That's not what I was asking."

"Uh huh."

Fuck it, he thinks, Dean is supposed to know better than to hide serious injuries.  He sits down on the opposite bed and leans across the narrow space, pulls up the hem of Dean's shirt carefully but quickly.  Dean makes an irritated noise and flails an arm back to slap him away, but John backs off before he can make contact, caught up looking over Dean's lower back and taking in the damage.  The skin is mottled black and blue, concentrated on his left side and worse than John had assumed.

"_Jesus,_" he breathes out.

Dean snorts.  "Pretty sure it wasn't Jesus."

It's too quiet in the motel room, even with the afternoon noise from the street filtering in from outside.  John stands, double checks the salt line and tucks a revolver in the back of his jeans as he heads out the door, ignoring Dean's half formed question. He paces outside for a minute, pissed at himself for walking out without any idea where he was headed.  They've got no leads on Sam, no leads on the hunt, and it's too damn dangerous to pull a hustle or go out for a drink right now.  Not when the demon might still be tailing them.

He forces himself to stand still, fingering the hex bag stuck in his pocket.  Missouri had handed them off just as they'd left, no explanation but a stern glare and '_keep these on you, don't you lose them now._'  He has no idea how effective they'll be; trusts  gun and salt and things he can see, only falling back on the witchcraft when there's no other choice.  There's an extra one for Sam tucked in the very back of the glove compartment. 

Fat lot of good it'll do him there.

He grabs a hot/cold pack from the first aid kit in the trunk and heads back inside.  Dean is still sprawled out on the bed, but flipped around with the tv on and news clippings spread out in front of him.  He looks up when John comes in but doesn't say anything.  John plunks the heat pack in room's tiny microwave and waits for it to heat up.

John clears his throat.  "Find anything good?"

"Not sure yet.  You have all these reports of electrical storms either right before or right after the kids' six month birthdays, but it's too general to track.  There are hundreds of thunder storms all over the country every year, maybe thousands.  There's no way to narrow it down."

"Look closer.  All of the storms were localized, the kids' houses were always dead center.  The timing changes a little but nothing else does."  The microwave dings and John takes out the pack, swapping it from hand to hand to make sure it isn't too hot.

"So what, we start scanning the weather channel twenty-four seven?"

John shrugs.  "If we have to.  If this thing is tracking Sam and the storms are tracking _it_, then it's best thing we've got right now."  There's got to be another way, but after twenty years he hasn't found it.  He carefully lays the heat pack on Dean's back.  Dean hisses as the heat sinks in, closes his eyes and shifts against the bed in a way that makes John realize he's still got his hand on top of the pack. 

"Better?"

"Mm," is all he says.

  
_January 2007_

The world tilts off it's axis, or that's how it feels, how it looks.  The ceiling flashes and blurs; fades away in shudders and jolts to a bird's eye view of the grimy bathroom sink.  Sam gags on it, the sudden shock of the shotgun blast replaced with a grinding headache.  He splashes water on his face and neck, swallows a few handfuls and stares at himself in the mirror until he's sure he can actually keep it down. 

_Small town, bus stop, _he thinks.  And a lake on the poster, where was it? 

He stumbles back out to the truck and downs a couple aspirin dry for all the good they'll do.  He spends a good ten minutes with stolen pad of motel paper and a pen, messily tracing over and over the lines making up the logo on the bus before his vision has cleared enough to actually drive.  His head is still pounding; he could be better off, but he could also definitely be worse. 

He needs to get back to the motel and on his computer if he has any hope of figuring out where the fuck he was headed next.

Nearly twelve hours later he gets in just in time to see the EMTs wrapping up the body of the man from his vision.

"What happened?" He asks one of the gawkers, not really wanting confirmation but needing it anyway. Always too little too late.

"It was Doctor Jennings.  He just walked right into the store and blew his own head off," the woman says, stunned.  "He delivered both of my kids, I just can't believe he could do this."

"Yeah."  Sam mutters something about never really knowing people and slips to the back of the crowd to take a better look at the area. 

Thirty minutes and one stolen wifi connection later, Sam has the name and last known employer of a guy just like Max and him; mother dead in a fire at six months and a sketchy as hell lack of information on his whereabouts for the past year and a half.  It's dark as hell, this picture that he's getting of what he's going to become.

  
"So you get visions of people about to die?"

"Why'd you do it, Andy?"

"I didn't kill anyone!  Why would I want to kill Dr. Jennings?  But seriously, death visions?  Dude,"  Andy stares at Sam like he's a sideshow freak, somehow less concerned about the murder accusation than he is about Sam's visions.

"I don't know how you're doing it, but I know it's you.  And whatever it is that's happened, whatever Dr. Jennings did - it's gotta stop, man.  Or I'll have to stop you."  He doesn't really know if he means that, doesn't know if he could actually kill the guy.  Gray area shit like this is just how Max ended up in prison - killing the human monsters instead of sticking to the cut-and-dry cases, but maybe prison is the best place for all of them.  Locked away to keep everyone else safe from whatever it is they're turning into. 

And maybe this is the first step.  Start killing human brings for good reasons and see how long it takes to start killing to any reason at all.

"Listen, I don't know what you think I did but maybe - "

Andy's voice fades to the background as pain flares in Sam's skull.  He stumbles off the sidewalk onto the lawn and sits down, barely aware of where he is anymore as the world around him flashes to something completely different.  Gas station.  Well-off woman on a cell phone.

Going up in flames.

  
"Whatever just happened, I didn't do it.  Oh shit, are you dying?  Please don't die."

Sam is pretty sure he isn't dying but it feels like maybe he should be.  It feels like his head is splitting open with the pressure, worse than before and amplified by the ache that had never really faded from yesterday.  He rolls back onto his feet clumsily and presses the heels of his hands against his temples as hard as he can.  It doesn't help.

He opens his eyes reluctantly and sees Andy's face hovering over him looking worried.  "A woman.  A woman burning," he says without knowing what he's trying to get across.  "Why?"

"That was a vision?"

"I saw a woman burning herself alive at a gas station."  Sam breathes out slowly and looks at Andy, putting every inch of his height to good use.  "How are you doing it?"

"I'm _not _doing it!  I'm not, I don't even know what you're talking about."

Sam hears the opening wail of fire engine in the background and they both stop and look around to try and figure out where it's coming from.

"It wasn't me.  I was here the whole time, you saw me.  I haven't done anything, I swear."

Sam stalls a minute, he can't leave Andy alone but he's willing to bet the sirens were heading for the gas station he'd just seen.  Something is wrong here, whatever these visions are, he usually has more warning than this.

"Get in the truck, we're going to see what happened."

"I don't really know if that's such a good idea.  Should you be driving right now?  Maybe you should sit down for a bit and uh, I'll go get help."  Yeah right, like he's gonna let that happen.  "Seriously, man.  _Sit down_ and relax for a bit."

Sam just stares at him and there's a flash of surprise in Andy's eyes.

"_Leave me alone_.  Forget about your crazy murder theories, go take a nice long nap and then leave town and _never come back_."

"Get in the truck."

Twenty-four hours later and Ansem is dead from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, Tracy is shaking and giving a very hazy report to the police and Andy looks more spaced out than any illegal substance could hope to achieve.

"You ever have those moments when you can't believe this is really your life?"

Sam snorts.  "All the time."

"Yeah.  I have an evil twin," Andy says, trying the words out for size.  He pauses a second and then corrects.  "Had.  I _had _an evil twin."

They both wince. 

"She's afraid of me now.  I never...I mean, not before tonight.  I never used it on her.  She won't even look at me."  Andy nods towards Tracy, sitting hunched in the back of an ambulance in the middle of the bustle of police and EMTs.

"I'm sorry,"  Sam says and doesn't specify for what exactly.  The town is a dead end, any leads on the demon died with Ansem and Sam's gotta get moving.  "Listen, I hate to do this to you but I've gotta go.  You've got my number, just, call me if anything comes up alright?"

"Yeah."  Andy still looks lost, but Sam figures he's the last person to be giving relationship advice.  Andy's a smart guy; he'll figure it out, or he won't.  Sam has bigger problems to deal with.

  
_February 2007_

Four weeks and upwards of four thousand miles of dead ends later they're standing in the middle of Rivergrove, Oregon with fuck-all to show for it.  There's literally nothing in the town; no people, no traces of sulfur, and the only thing that vaguely hints at Sam is the medical center, which is stocked to the gills with home made explosives and a shitton of rock salt.  It could very well have been some other hunter, but there's no way to know for sure; not with all potential witnesses MIA.

"Seriously, where the fuck could they have gone?  It's not like they friggin' melted," Dean says as he flips over a stray hubcap with the tip of his bowie.  There's a splotch of blood staining the asphalt underneath, like all the other traces of violence they've found around town with no clear explanation for any of them.  "Storm came through here, what, four weeks ago?"

"Yeah."

"And not one person got out?"

"Apparently the town was quarantined for a couple of days right after the storm hit.  By the time the quarantine was lifted - "  John waves a hand at the empty street.  "There's a doc up in Sidewinder who's been raising a stink, trying to get the CDC involved.  But without any bodies she's not having much luck.  Only people interested are the crazies."

"Lemme guess, E.T. phoned home and the entire town got beamed up by the mothership?"

"Makes about as much sense as anything else does.  Popular theory is some kind of suicide cult and the bodies are hidden away somewhere no one's been able to find yet."

"Maybe it's just me, but I kinda think a couple hundred dead bodies would be difficult to hide."

For all that it's a gruesome thought, it is right on the mark.  No way the combined task force of Feds and local law enforcement searched the area for weeks and missed a heaping pile of corpses, they'd be able to smell it from miles away if nothing else.  It's possible they self-immolated, but even then the smoke and the pile of ash and bone would be an easy mark. 

For whatever reason, everyone in the town vanished without a trace, including Sam, if he was here.  John has never hoped so much to be wrong.

Dean stands up slowly, eyes still scanning the perimeter like there's any chance they'll catch something alive and moving.  They've spent the past three days sweeping every building, backyard and mom-and-pop shop in the area and found diddly squat.

"The doc might know something."

If Sam was ever here, he only thing John knows is that he isn't anymore.  But a hunter definitely was, and if they'd left ordinance behind it meant they'd either been captured or left in a hurry and couldn't carry it with them.  Both possibilities leave him cold. 

"Yeah, let's check out the doc."

Five miles down the road to Sidewinder there's an abandoned pickup truck on the side of the road with blood smeared over the driver's seat and steering wheel and a dusting of sulfur covering the dash and clouding the windows.

Dean wrinkles his nose and reaches inside to pop the glove compartment while John checks the back for a weapons compartment.  He finds nothing, and Dean comes up with a stack of run of the mill toll receipts and insurance cards.  No fake IDs, no salt, no weapons; it's not the hunter's truck and it's definitely not Sammy's.  Last he'd heard, Sam'd been driving a black Ford pickup and they hadn't found anything matching that description in the town. 

Amanda Lee is living in a hole in the wall tiny apartment on the outskirts of Sidewinder, in an outdated building with narrow hallways and cracked linoleum floors.  She opens the door with the chain still attached and raises an eyebrow at their Federal Marshalls badges.

"I've heard that one before."  She looks them over with a critical expression.  "Are you here about Rivergrove?"

"Yes ma'am," Dean answers as earnestly as he can.  To John it doesn't look very earnest at all, but Amanda must buy it because she closes the door and slips off the chain.

"Come on in.  Can I get you something to drink?"

It's obvious right away why she's stuck in a rundown building like this; books, paper and various documents are piled up everywhere, from the couch cushions to cardboard boxes that have clearly been left unpacked.  John knows he's obsessed, but it's always a surprise to see your own mania reflected back at you so clearly.  As far as he knows, everything this woman knew as home disappeared with no explanation in the space of a few days.  It's understandable.

John shoves his hands into his pockets and looks around for a place to sit.  Amanda notices his hesitation and shoves a few piles of paper off of the couch. 

"Sorry about the mess," she says without much feeling behind it. "Coffee, tea?"

John waves her off and lacking something to do, she sits down uneasily on top of one of the large boxes with her hands folded in her lap.

"So."

"So, Ms. Lee.  Can you tell us what happened in Rivergrove?"

"If you've read the reports -"

"We have," Dean interrupts.  "We'd just like to hear it from you, in your own words.  A first hand account can be very helpful in situations like this."

"Well," she takes a deep breath.  "Everyone in town just went mad.  It seemed to spread like a blood borne contagion, but not like one I've ever seen.  Some diseases have been know to cause dementia but - nothing like this.  And then they just disappeared.  No trace, nothing left behind; they just vanished.  Look, I know what the news has been saying and I know that's the story that makes the most sense but that's not what happened."

"I know this must be difficult, but can you tell us how you managed to get out?"

"I didn't.  Not until after everyone else was gone.  There was a man," she stops and eyes them for a minute, considering.  "A stranger that came to town the day everything happened.  Said he was a Federal Marshall too.  He looked very young for the job," she says with a pointed look at Dean.

John clears his throat, time to steer the conversation a bit.  "And this man, he helped you get out?"

"He- He was infected.  It's the reason Mark and Duane and I left without him, left him behind."  John's vision pinholes at that, hyperfocused on a tiny crack in the wall behind Amanda's left shoulder.  "We left him locked in the medical center, but when we saw that everyone had disappeared we went right back and he was gone.  But,"

John forces himself to meet her eyes, doesn't want to hear the next part but can't stop himself hoping.

"- his truck was gone too.  It was parked right outside the center and when we came back it was gone and so was he.  I um, I heard Mark and Duane were never found.  As far as I know we're the only ones that got out."

"You said it was like a virus, what does the CDC have to say about it?"

Thank god Dean's there to make this look vaguely legitimate and keep asking questions even though they've got everything they wanted.  Or not what they wanted, but as much information about Sam as this woman seems to have.  It may not be the best news, but it's better than anything they have so far.  All of the other victims had left everything behind - the police that had combed the town had found everyone's cars still parked in the driveways and streets.  If Sammy's truck was gone, then maybe that meant he'd driven himself out of there on his own steam.

_He was infected_, John thinks.  In what state he'd driven out of there was another question altogether.  John tunes back into the conversation just in time to hear Dean ask, "Would he have been able to drive if he'd been infected?"

She shakes her head.  "It depends on how far along it was.  I mean, until they presented with obvious symptoms there was no way to tell who was infected and who wasn't.  And even then, someone behaving completely normally could snap at any second."

"If you couldn't tell who was infected how did you know Sam was?"

Amanda's eyes widen a bit at that, but she answers like she didn't notice his slip.  "He had direct blood to blood contact.  There was just no way he wasn't exposed."

"Thank you for your time," Dean fills in while John tries to process.  Awkward handshakes are exchanged and she catches John's eye just as she's about to close the door behind them.

"I hope you find him," she says, serious and honest.  John nods and accepts it without bothering to ask how she made them, wondering just how obvious they'd been with their questions.

   
"Sulfuric residue in the blood," Dean whistles through his teeth.  "I don't remember much biology but that sounds a little unhealthy.  But seriously, what the hell?  You ever heard of a demonic plague?"

"No.  I have heard of something similar though.  Roanoke."

"What's that?"

"You pay any attention in school?"  John swipes a hand through his hair and gives Dean a rundown of the basics.

"So this happened once before that we know of.  You think 'croatoan' is the name of a demon?"

"I think it might be.  Or the name of the disease, who the fuck knows.  Only person who might have a better idea what happened in that town is Sam."

  
Leads on Sam start popping up like weeds in early March.  As if all the previous months chasing second and third-hand echoes of Sam were the calm before the storm and now there's a supercell forming that's visible from miles away.  Police reports of petty thefts, APBs out on suspects fitting Sam's description spanning three states, and murmurs loud enough among hunters that even John, isolated as he is, can't help but overhear. 

Everything they're saying is bullshit, of course, and he'll keep repeating it until it's proved true.  Either that or he witnesses with his own two eyes some incontrovertible goddamn proof that his boy is anything but one-hundred percent pure human.

Dean keeps stealing glances over at him whenever he thinks John isn't paying attention, which is ridiculous because John is _always_ paying attention and it pisses him off a little.  He's not distracted; he's never been more focused in his life.

Sam's last suspected location is two days ago at a roadside diner just outside of Des Moines, Iowa.   They're 400 miles away, racing down Rt. 76 at eighty miles an hour.  He floors it.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam wakes up and doesn't immediately remember where he is, which is common enough, really. But there's blood clotted on his shirt, enough that he'd be worried about it if he wasn't relatively sure it wasn't his. Which isn't actually much of a comfort, really. And after a full ten minutes of staring at his hands and poking and prodding at his head to check for lumps he still can't remember how the fuck he got here.

Blood and bruises and knocks to the head are all things he's used to, but this, this not remembering anything at all definitely isn't. There are two sets of keys in his pockets, one with a cracked plastic key chain that tells him it's for the motel room and another he doesn't recognize at all.

The clerk at the front desk is an older woman with bone-dry looking skin and thinning hair, and she gives him the hairy eyeball the entire time he fumbles through his awkward questions. She isn't any help; only thing he gets out of her is that he came in stinking drunk early yesterday evening demanding directions to the nearest storage unit.

When he asks for those directions again she just gives him a blank look.

"What, making me write 'em down once wasn't enough? I ain't wasting my time. And I'm charging you extra for smoking in the room. There's a sign about it and everything." She rolls her eyes up towards the faded printout tacked on the wall behind her. He can taste the ashes in his mouth now that he thinks about it, had assumed the awful taste was the hangover and whatever the fuck knocked him over the head hard enough to cause memory loss.

He thinks about Max. About Scott Carey, and Beverly Tanner._ One moment they were my husband and my son. And the next, they had the devil inside them._

Jesus fuck, he's screwed.

Sam shoves a twenty across the table and the clerk finally relents - gives him the name of the storage facility and points out back behind the motel. She won't give him any more help than that, but it's a start.

"Hey John." It's not a voice he expects to hear, not after near on two decades of radio silence, but he recognizes it instantly.

"Ellen."

"I'm just calling to give you a heads up. There's something out there that's going after hunters. Pete was found dead on his ranch four days ago and now Steve Wandell isn't answering his phone. Just be on the look out, okay? Something about this 's got everyone's teeth on edge."

No shit. Hunters bite the dirt all the time; it's a dangerous gig, everyone else spills some whiskey in their memory and moves on. What isn't common is a retired hunter like Pete getting offed in his own home. Run of the mill criminals wouldn't stand a chance - paranoia is practically a job requirement, or it is if you hunt and expect to continue breathing for much longer. Whatever did this was bad mojo, John's pretty damn certain.

"Listen, I got other calls to make. You take care." Ellen's a damn good woman, but it's painfully obvious she wants off the line as soon as possible.

"You too," John mutters and the line goes dead.

Dean eyes him from the passenger seat. "What's up?"

"Don't know." But something is bugging him about this one - Ellen's call, Pete Vesnik, Steve Wandell. Pete's place is almost 700 miles in the rearview mirror and that's when it hits him. Pete's is behind him and Wandell's is straight ahead. The intel is four days old but the timing fits too damn well for John to ignore it. "Fuck."

"Seriously, what?"

"It's Sam."

It's not even close to an explanation, but Dean apparently takes it at face value and stows the questions for the rest of the trip. John is white-knuckled on the steering wheel, same way he has been for the last three months, glaring at the horizon like if he just concentrates hard enough Sam will appear, safe and sound and in no way involved with the two dead hunters.

  
There's a car in the driveway, modified with a front-seat sliding weapons cache if John's not mistaken. He already knew the guy was a player; met him at the Roadhouse a few times way back when Sammy was still small enough to sleep stretched out in the backseat. Still, a car like that is a pretty damn clear sign that retired or not Wandell was still in the game enough to defend himself against a random burglar. The security feed is cut and the lock is intact; if something not-human got to Wandell (and John is betting something did) then it was a pro job.

Dean is jittery, brows knit together and eyes scanning around like he's expecting to find anything more exciting than a dead body. But Dean's instincts are usually spot-on, so his obvious nerves are setting John's teeth on edge. There's no reason that whatever took out Pete and Wandell isn't still here, waiting.

They step to either side of the door, reaching for their sidearms almost simultaneously .

The door clicks open softly, still too loud for John's tastes but if anything is lying in wait for them the gig is already up anyway. They're parked right across the street and already spent a few minutes poking around the car, not exactly the most stealthy B&amp;E John's ever done. He eases the door open and they step inside, fanning out immediately and trying to cover every corner at once. The house is deathly silent, still and creepy in a way that grates at the back of John's mind. Whatever it was that Dean was picking up on, John's got it now too - a creeping feeling that something bad went down here and it never really left.

There's a soft creak from the other room, they both cock their heads to pick up on the sound. John waves Dean towards the kitchen and heads down the hall on the other side. Trap the bastard, whatever the fuck it is. Dean moves silently, gun cocked and body turned sideways to present a smaller target.  Good boy.

They bust in both doors to the back room within seconds of each other, guns trained ahead and John sees ...Gordon?

Gordon is sitting in the desk chair, calm and easy with a sidearm in one hand trained on John and what looks like a remote control in the other. To John's surprise, Gordon flicks the safety back on and points the gun up at the ceiling, fingers splayed in surrender.

"John. Everyone told me I should keep my distance from this one, but I knew you'd be man enough to do the right thing. It's good to see you."

"What 'right thing'?"

Gordon raises an eyebrow. "You're chasing Sam, aren't you? Gotta say I admire you, it can't be easy."

John's still got the gun trained on Gordon and Dean is taking his cues from John. He's got no idea what the hell Gordon is talking about, but something about his tone is making John's trigger finger itch.

"What've you found?"

"I had my doubts until I got here. Thought maybe he was just young and naive when he let a bunch of fangs go just because they said they would play nice. Thought I must be an idiot putting stock in anything one of those evil sonuvabitches spewed out." He shakes his head and hits a button on the remote, the screen out of John's line of sight but not out of Dean's. Dean's eyes flick back and forth between Gordon and the computer screen. "But then I asked around a bit. Talked to a few people, learned a few things. And then about two weeks ago your boy started getting careless."

He clicks the remote again and Dean's eyes lock on the screen.

"I like you, John. Only ever heard good things about you. But I gotta be honest, must be a hard thing chasing down your son like this, but all the same. Think I'd rather work alone." He gets up and balances the remote on the arm of the chair. "I'll leave you to it."

John is stuck in place, Gordon's words clanking around in his head and not making any sense. Dean glances at John for direction but gets nothing and steps aside to let Gordon pass. A minute later they hear an engine turn over and Gordon is gone.

"Sir?" Dean steps towards the screen, examining it. He only calls John that when he's freaked.

_I had my doubts, until I got here_. John steps around the desk and looks down at the screen. The blurry security camera footage is paused on Sam, holding down Wandell and dragging a knife across his throat. Sam isn't facing the camera, his head is tilted down but John would know that mop of hair anywhere; just as easily as he knows that it can't possibly be Sam.

Dean reaches down and hits play and they both watch as Wandell dies and Sam looks up at the camera and there's nothing. No camera flare, no black eyes. Nothing.

Gordon isn't chasing after Sam, he's hunting him. Sam is possessed, or drugged, or cursed because goddammit six years gone by or not he knows his own damn son. And there's no way Sam did this on his own.

Sure enough, the key in his pocket matches up to the rusted old padlock on number seventeen, a double-wide unit with a fresh set of tire tracks imprinted in the gravel outside.

There's an old car parked inside, and the panel under the dash is hanging open with the ignition wires pulled out. Stolen and hot wired, and yeah Sam's done that every once in a while but only when he absolutely needed to. He thinks maybe he got into some bad shit and took a hard knock to the head; it would certainly explain the jackhammer that seems to start up every time he moves too quickly or turns his head too fast. Doesn't explain why he didn't just park the car at the motel though.

It starts up okay, three-quarters of a tank of gas and rumbling along just fine. He makes a slow circuit of the town, right turn after right turn in an ever expanding circle, just hoping something will look familiar. An hour later and about two miles outside of the town proper the sight of a gas station jars him like a stiff hit straight to the chest and he cuts across two lanes of traffic to pull in.

The guy manning the counter won't tell him shit, just holds up the phone like a talisman and won't listen to a damn thing Sam says. Sam books it out of there when the guy actually starts dialing the cops, drives straight out of town until he reaches a deserted stretch of road where he finally stops and leans his head against the steering wheel. When the pounding in his head has finally dimmed back down to manageable levels he sits up and starts going over the car more carefully.

There's blood smeared over the front seat, not a surprise given the state of his shirt when he'd woken up. The glovebox has all the usual crap in it, insurance cards and manuals and a piss poor excuse for a first aid kit. All kinds of crap is piled on the backseat and in the footwells - junk food wrappers and empty bottles, and more tell tale smears of blood that lead under the threadbare mat.

When he finds the bloody knife in the backseat he knows he's in way the fuck over his head.

He's been on his own too long to think of calling John, the hurt still fresh nearly a year and a half later - waking up alone with his hands still healing and familiar looking protective sigils carved into the back of the headboard of his hospital bed. Knowing for a fact that John had been there, knew exactly what Sam had been through and hadn't fucking bothered to stop long enough to wait for him to wake up.

John has been a mental blank for four years, a black hole that his thoughts tiptoed around lest he fall in. Finding those symbols had opened the floodgates, made Sam feel like he was seven years old again - waking up in the morning to find crumpled bills on the nightstand and a bag of groceries the only evidence that John had been there at all.

His options are few and far between. Whatever this is he's stepped in, it's too damn heavy to lay it on friends and acquaintances. Can't reel in anyone else if all it's gonna do it get them hurt. He needs someone tough as nails and probably old enough to know better than to get involved with this shit.

He calls Bobby.

"So do we tail Gordon or do we stick with tailing Sam?"

They're fucked either way. John knows how hunters work; how they talk. If Gordon is after Sam for whatever reason, chances are other hunters are already on it too. They've spent the past four hours turning over Wandell's place, looking for any hint of Sam or what the fuck might be pulling his strings. Dean wipes down the house, covers every surface they think Sam might've touched and then trashes the hard drive with brute force because no way either of them trust the delete button to be anywhere near thorough enough.

"We stick with Sammy." He's hedging his bets. Gordon'll be covering his tracks, and for whatever reason Sam isn't. It's just further proof that Sam can't be himself right now - John knows damn well he taught his boy better than that. "Call the local paper, see if they've had any ads placed in the last day or so."

It's an old trick, one they used to use when John had to leave for days at a time and CPS started sniffing around too close for comfort. Back in the days before cell phones and text messages and email, other parents found their kids via intercom messages and agreements about meeting in the back left corner; John and Sammy had the personals section of the Lawrence newspaper.

He knows Sam remembers, if only because too many of the cases John's left coordinates for over the past year and a half have been resolved when he checked up on them weeks later. John still has the beat up old cell phone he'd been using the year Sammy left, he keeps it charged in the glovebox just in case. But it's never rung. Sam's cellphone burned up at the same time his girlfriend did, and if he ever replaced the phone he apparently didn't bother to keep the same number.

The paper is clunky and slow, and occasionally hideously unreliable and riddled with typos, but it's the only thing he's got.

Dean digs out his cellphone just as John's starts buzzing in his pocket. Blind hope overrules common sense for single moment and he flips open the phone without stopping looking at the display.

"Sammy?"

"Not quite."

"Gordon? Where the fuck are you?"

"Right outside this little church in Blue Earth, Minnesota. You know your boy's stealing cars now, John? Followed this busted up little Toyota straight here."

Fucking liar. "Why're you calling?"

"Courtesy. I'm not a monster, I know this must be hard for you. I'm not doing this out of spite - he's after Jim Murphy, and I gotta stop him."

"You touch him and I'll fucking- "

The line cuts off and John smacks the phone against steering wheel. Has to give himself a minute before the white hot rage clears from his eyes enough to dial Jim. Five rings, ten. Jim isn't picking up.

The machine eventually clicks over to voicemail after far too fucking long and John lets out a string of curses long and loud enough to make his old drill sarg from the marines blush. He slams on the brakes and pulls the car off the road, kicking up enough dirt and dust to cloud the air and make his eyes water even through the rolled up windows.

Dean's got his own phone up to his ear and there's a faint rumble of a voice coming over the small speaker but he's staring straight at John.

"Gordon says Sam's in Blue Earth. Jim isn't picking up his phone."

"That's interesting, 'cause Bobby says he's got Sam."

John's mind is racing too fast to process that right away. "Bobby's got Sam?"

"Yeah." Dean frowns. "What the hell is after Pastor Jim?"

"I don't know."

"Shit."

"Pretty much."

John believes Bobby over Gordon in a heartbeat, but that doesn't mean he can just leave Jim out to hang. Something is going after hunters, and something about the edge of excitement in Gordon's voice makes John's skin crawl.  He's never known Gordon to be so damn calm.

"There was a mall with a nice full parking lot about five miles back, wasn't there?" Dean asks.

"You want to grab a car?"

"That's the general idea."

John pulls a U-ie that ends up being more on the grass than on the road, spends the three minute trip back trying to tell Dean every last damn thing he can remember about Gordon Walker and where Jim keeps his personal stashes of weaponry. Dean knows all of this already; John knows he knows it, but can't seem to stop his damn mouth from moving. He knows the kid capable, and smart, and a damned good hunter. Still. It's the first time he's ever sent Dean off on his own and the stress and worry for Sam, for Dean, for Jim...it's piling up.

Dean grabs his duffel out of the trunk and tucks weapons and supplies into every available pocket and holster he's got, as subtly as he can at midday in the middle of a nice big shopping mall parking lot.

John rolls the passenger side window down and levels a stern a look as he can manage as Dean leans down to wave him off.

"You be more fucking careful than you've ever been in your life, you hear?"

"Yessir."

"Call me as soon as you find Jim."

Dean nods and gives the roof a parting slap as he heads off to find a ride. John's got near three hundred miles to cover and too fucking little time to do it in.

Sam wakes up tied to a chair and his head feels like it's splitting open, again. His throat feels scrubbed raw and his wrists are aching and sticky with blood from the restraints. He looks around slowly, something about the room pinging his memory and he can't figure out what.

"You in there, kid?"

Sam whips his head around and instantly regrets it, vertigo blurring his vision and making his stomach turn over.  "Bobby?"

He hasn't seen Bobby in near on seven years, but it's pretty damn easy to recognize the baseball cap and gruffness of his voice.

"Yeah, lucky me. How're you feeling?" Bobby's got his arms crossed in front of him, a flask clutched in each hand and a strange look on his face. And he isn't moving to untie Sam.

"Like I got hit by a fourteen wheeler," Sam groans, too miserable and confused to be above a little self pity. "And then tied to a chair."

"Life's a bitch that way, ain't it? Sit tight, you're not getting up for a while yet."

"Did I- " Sam swallows, hating the rasp of his own voice. "Bobby, did I go bad?"

Bobby finally walks around to Sam's front, kicks out a chair and sits down heavily. "No. You went and got yourself possessed though, is what it looks like to me."

Sam frowns, shrugs his shoulders and flexes his hands like there should be some kind of physical clue if he'd really been possessed. Doesn't feel like anyone else is pulling the strings, but it sounds like a nice and tidy explanation for the missing time.

"So what happens now?"

"Now I wait 'til your Daddy gets here so he can make the hard choices, 'cause I sure as hell ain't gonna."

"Hard choices. You can't just exorcise me?"

Bobby shakes his head. "Far as I can tell, that demon's been riding you for well over two weeks now. All that time and I don't know what all it's been doing up in there, and it looks like it's locked itself in there nice 'n tight too." Bobby nods down at Sam's forearm and Sam has to strain and twist to look down and see the raised edge of a marked burned into his skin.

"Oh shit."

"Sounds about right. I'm not much good at breaking these kinds of things easy, but I gotta let you know - demon mojo might be the only thing keeping you breathing right now."

Sam has never felt so close to the breaking point. Everything hurts, and all his best efforts have blown up in his face.  "Dad's coming?"

"On his way right now. I hate to do this to you, I really do, but you're just gonna have to sit tight a while longer. If I know John at all, he's busting down the damn sound barrier to get here."

  
At some point, and John is certain that as long as he lives he'll never be sure when exactly it happened, he blinked for just a second and Sammy grew up. Standing here and staring at his son, closer than he's been in years; he can't see any hint of the little baby boy he'd taken for drives around the neighborhood at three in the morning just to get him to sleep. Didn't seem to matter whether it was back in their perfect little house in Lawrence, or some run of the mill motel room in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere - Sammy'd always slept better in the car.

Sam isn't sleeping now. He's unconscious, or the son of a bitch possessing him is in control, or he just doesn't have the energy to raise his head. He's tied to a chair in the middle of a devil's trap, wrists bloody from the struggle and hair hanging down over his eyes in just the way that John always hated. Every fiber in his body wants to walk forward and shake him awake and then hug him tight until he can't breathe.  And then probably smack him upside the head, but only after he's made sure the kid's skull is still in one piece.

He's too well versed in this crap to do anything of the sort. Stands back and waits for Sam to come around on his own, hoping that when his head finally tips up it'll be Sam in control and not the demon.

"Waiting isn't going to make it any easier," Bobby interrupts from just outside the room.

John's had his issues with Bobby over the years, but there aren't many men that'd be kind enough to give him a chance at a goodbye, if kindness is really what you can call this. Either way, he's right, and every second he waits is another second this evil bastard gets to spend topside. He plucks the rosary out of a paint pail and hits Sam square in the chest with a splash of holy water.

It hisses and steams as soon as the water hits, just more confirmation as if John actually needed any. The things head snaps up, eyes black and mouth pulled back in a grimace.

"John Winchester. So nice to finally meet you."

It's strange hearing the words come out of Sam's mouth. The cadence is all wrong, and even on his very worst teenage mood swings Sam never managed to sneer quite like that.

"Fuck you. What've you done to him?"

It smiles.

John takes his time. Twenty years on the run makes some people think you're just easily distracted, but that's  
never been the case with John. He has focus, and skill, and enough self discipline to see things through even when the going gets rough.

It screams, and it lies; weaves ugly stories to distract him and piss him off. Some of it works, but not enough for him to slip up. It laughs when it talks about killing Vesnik and Wandell, mocks Sam's horrified face when he'd woken up covered in blood and found the knife stuck in the backseat. John seethes, punches a hole through the wall and reads halfway through an exorcism just to watch it squirm.

Bobby stands back and watches the whole thing, eyes the new hole in the wall with a resigned look and silently points down at the brands on Sam's arms when the first full read through doesn't work. John doesn't think he'll ever get the smell of his son's burning flesh out of his head; like the sight of Mary on the ceiling and the scar tissue still visible on Sam's hands and arms wasn't enough.

But it has to be done, and John reminds himself over and over again that he is a practical man.

At the end of it, Sam is tipped over in his chair, chest heaving and eyes clenched shut.

"Sammy?" John calls from two steps away, just barely inside the devil's trap - now broken and all but useless. Sam's breath hitches and he curls in on himself a little tighter.

John is there before he even thinks about it, pulling Sam up against him and pressing one hand to his chest, checking his breathing, his racing heartbeat, burying his face in the mess of Sam's hair.

"Jesus, Sammy. It's okay, son, I got you."

Sam is groggy and pale, looks like he hasn't slept in about a week and hasn't bothered to shave for even longer.  He looks like John feels.  He's sitting on the couch, hunched over and all folded up in a mess of too long limbs that don't fit quite right on the low seat.

"It's gone.  You're sure it's gone?"  He asks for the third time.

"Yeah Sammy, we're good."

"Did I-  Dad, I think I hurt someone.  There was blood all over, it wasn't mine -"

He goes on trying to explain, disjointed phrases tumbling out mismatched and and only half-formed.  John lets him have at it, knows Sam's got a guilt complex a mile wide and probably wouldn't listen to reason if he brought it up anyway.  John's not always the most observant man, but he's not a complete idiot either - he knows he doesn't have a leg to stand on telling Sam not to worry about the things he (it dammit, _it_) might've done.

So he sits and he waits, and he lets Sam talk himself out until the words start making sense again.  And then his heart stops cold.

"I get these visions, these - I dunno, these nightmares.  Sometimes they come true."

And Christ, there's some stuff you expect to be in the parenting manuals and there's some stuff you know won't be even if you really wish it was, and then there's crap like this that hits like a bucket of ice water even if maybe you've been expecting it for a while now.  What he wants to do is rage and yell, demand an explanation why the hell Sam didn't call him up or drop an ad in the Lawrence paper or something.  Anything.  But so far this has been the most civil conversation they've had since Sam was probably about fifteen and that's (just barely) enough to keep the anger and the fear in check.

"How often does it happen?"

Sam shakes his head.  "It's random.  They're always related to the demon though, it's always one of his kids that I see, or something that they're doing."  He pauses a second, eyes John with an expression he recognizes all too easily.  "You knew about this, didn't you?  Or some of it, at least.  You knew about the other nursery fires and the kids with special abilities, and don't tell me you didn't 'cause you sure as hell don't look surprised right now.

"Did you-" he swallows.  "Did you know about Jess?  Dad, did you know it was coming after her?"

John closes his eyes and hopes to God Sam doesn't take it as an admission of guilt.  He hates the look in Sam's eyes; not just the old easily dismissible teenage anger but hurt and betrayal and a horrible creeping suspicion.

"No, Sammy.  God no.  You think I would've stood by if I knew it was coming for you?"

"Right.  Because when I saw you right afterwards you looked so concerned.  Oh, _wait -_"

"Sam -"

"I didn't see you, did I?  My entire life burns down and I had people I barely remembered from second year Chem class visiting me, but my own father is MIA.  As usual."

"I was scared for you, and I thought we were getting close to it."

Sam's head snaps up, eyes narrowing.  "We?"

John can already tell this is going to go over like roses.  "Dean and I."  He'd kind of been hoping he could leave it at that, but Sam isn't exactly in the most forgiving of moods.  "My hunting partner."

As if that really explains anything.

"You have a hunting partner?"  And as irritating as it sometimes is in the middle of an argument, sometimes Sam's whip-fast mind changes tack and it's actually a blessing.  Better to talk about this than more godawful arguing about the demon.  Sam sounds incredulous, to say the least.

"Kid tried to swipe my wallet at a fill up joint," no reason to bring up the drinking if he doesn't have to, "I dragged him off to scare some sense into him and turned out he had this dream walker attached to him."

Sam rolls his eyes and gives up a crooked half smile.  "So you gave him a shotgun and took him out on the hunt."

"Pretty much, yeah."  John shifts forward in his chair, just enough to wrap a hand around one of Sam's shoulders and give a good hard squeeze.  "Don't get me wrong, I hate that you got dragged back into this shit, but it's good to have you back."

Sam stares down at the floor.  "Yeah."

There's a million things neither one of them is talking about, bringing any of it up is a whole can of worms John knows neither one of them have the energy or the self control to deal with right now.  That's never stopped either of them in the past, and John knows himself well enough to know it won't last long but Sam is here and he's safe and they're not screaming at each other yet which is enough for now.

  
Sam is out ditching the stolen car.  '_You think I don't get enough police suspicion 'cause of the salvage yard, heck no you can't leave that here,' _had been Bobby's first words to Sam after the exorcism.  Bobby's an all around good guy, but his patience and hospitality have limits.

Sam's got Missouri's hex bag tucked in one pocket and a prepaid cellphone with John set to speed dial in the other and that's the only damn reason John is letting him leave the frigging house on his own.  He knows he's being ridiculous and paranoid, but the old adage is true - it ain't paranoia if they really are all out to get you.

The problem is, and John's blood pressure ticks up a notch just thinking about it instead of being about to do something, is that Dean isn't answering his phone.  Three calls, fifteen minutes apart and John actually knows from experience at this point that even hypothermic or knocked unconscious Dean should've been able to pick up by now. 

Bobby is off trying to get Jim or anyone else he knows in the area, at it for nearly twenty minutes now and has no intel to show for it.  John hears a phone click back in the cradle from somewhere in the other room and a minute later Bobby is standing in the doorway shaking his head.

"Far as I can tell,  no one knows shit and Jim ain't answering his phone.  I got a contact with a Ranger 'bout two towns over that could swing by, but I'm guessing from the look on your face you're damn well going to see for yourself anyway, am I right?"

"Not much point in waiting, is there?"  He nods at Bobby, _thanks_ and _take care_ and _nevermind about that shotgun threat_ all wrapped up in one quick gesture that Bobby returns in kind.  They get each other, even with as much time as they spend butting heads, Bobby is the kind of guy that makes it real easy to say everything you need to get across without opening your mouth. 

John heads out, has an idea of the area where Sammy was headed to ditch the car and plans on calling when he gets a bit closer.  After that it's a straight shot, barely a hundred and fifty miles to Jim's place and when he gets there he's seriously considering just handcuffing the damn kids together and locking them in the backseat for the rest of their natural lives.  Dealing with the inevitable bitching would probably be less stressful than this shit.

He finds the car before he finds Sam, almost doesn't even bother stopping - thinks maybe Sam took a shortcut back or they missed each other along the road between here and Bobby's.  But there's a lump at the side of the road that looks suspiciously like Sam's pack.  John slams on the breaks and bolts out of the car without bothering to turn the engine off.

The smell hits him before the sight of the powder does. Powder could just be dust, or pollen, or one of a million other completely harmless things, except it's not.  It's the stench of rotten eggs, volcanoes; evil.  There's sulfur all over the driver's seat and Sam's pack is abandoned in the middle of the road.

Neither one of them is answering their phones.

  
Dean's sidearm is gone.  So is the silver knife that's usually strapped to his right ankle, and even the dinky switchblade in his left jean pocket is gone.  The last thing he remembers is facing off against Gordon in the back hallway of Jim's house.

The room he's in now looks nothing like Pastor Jim's.  It doesn't look like a house that's been inhabited by anybody at all in at least a couple of decades.  Dean pushes himself up, hands digging into hard packed dirt floor.  Maybe more than just a few decades.  Where the hell is he?

The room is completely empty; no sign of Gordon and no sign of Jim anywhere, either.  He's alone, unarmed, and his cell phone is out of range.

Dean closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.  _Focus on what you've got_, he thinks, and it sounds suspiciously like John's voice. 

Getting out of the room is easy enough, he jimmies a window and slips out into what looks like the set of an old school horror movie.  A bad one.  He's about ninety percent sure he's seen this one, actually - watched it about three months back on a crap motel set with the color balance all shot to hell so that everyone either looked bright orange or neon green.  It makes him feel a little bit better, because the people in that flick had all been fucking idiots but some of them had managed to survive.

Gordon's got to be around here somewhere.  Fucking with him, pulling kind of crazy cat and mouse shit.  He must've had a friend with him at Jim's, someone else to sneak around behind and clock Dean over the head while he was distracted.  It's the only thing he can think of that makes a damn bit of sense why he's here.

He sticks close to the outside wall of the building, edges forward to peek around out on what he thinks must be town center.  An old windmill creaks along smack in the middle, and the ground is pitted and muddy - uneven enough to look like something else has been through the area but nowhere near clear enough tell what or who, or how many.

Dean backtracks, not willing to risk crossing all that open ground in case Gordon's out there with a sniper rifle and a bad attitude. 

The building right next to the one he came out of is some kind of school room; there's an old blackboard along one wall and a sad collection of those uncomfortable dual desk chairs.  A warped yard stick is sitting in the chalk holder under the blackboard, it's not a rock salt loaded shotgun but it's better than nothing.

Just then he catches something out of the corner of his eye; the only movement he's seen here other than the old windmill.  He drops low, eyes locked on the window.  Every innocuous creak of wood and rustle of leaves sounds like a threat when he's keyed up like this, no way to tell them apart stuck inside like this.

A full minute later the door busts in and this huge guy comes into the room with a freaking crowbar clutched in one hand.  Dean has a horrifying moment of _holy shit_ when he realizes he's going up against a fucking Sasquatch with nothing but a crappy yardstick before he gets a better look.  He's never actually seen the guy from less than twenty paces but it's pretty impossible to miss the shaggy hair and and a very familiar looking jawline.

"_Sammy?_"

The guy stops mid-step and gapes at him.  "Who the fuck are you?"

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from the song "Saints and Angels" by Sara Evans. (The title for "In places I would never choose" was taken from the song "Crushed and Created" by Caitlyn Smith.)
> 
> Will be updated once a week.


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